


On the inside

by Trojie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby's Panic Room, Comfort No Hurt, Demon Blood Addiction, Detox, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a relapse, after going cold-turkey, after the sweats and the visions, after the pleading and screaming, after the blackout, the cuffs get unlocked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the inside

**Author's Note:**

> For my hc_bingo 2013 card, prompt 'imprisonment'. Set after Sam's Famine-induced relapse.

Sam doesn't know how long it's been, but he comes to with the taste of blood in his mouth - _just his own, he knows the difference, it just makes him sick, doesn't give him anything_ \- and Dean rubbing the skin of his wrists where they're red-black-blue all chafed and bruised.

'Dean?' he croaks. 

'Heya, Sammy,' Dean murmurs. 'No, don't,' he adds when Sam tries to sit up. 'Just hang on, okay? I'm gonna get you some water.'

Sitting up feels like it's gonna hurt anyway. Sam's body is starting to tell him things like maybe he hasn't been just lying here passed out passive for however long it's been. He lies back as Dean leaves to get that water, but staring at the devil's trap in the ceiling makes him scared he won't be able to get out of it, and he has to try just to see, and the grinding noise of the fan is doing something he doesn't like in the back of his head, stirring things up, and before he knows what he's doing he's across the room, out of the devil's trap's shadow and across the paint on the floor, and he hits the salt-iron wall of the panic room with a thud. 

It hurts. 

'Sam, what was - fuck,' Dean says, coming back in with a water bottle. He freezes when Sam's not where he expects him to be, and then almost sags like he's been punched when he finds Sam still in the room, strides over to him and drops down to sit next to him, two grown men huddled like kids on the floor. 

Dean puts his arm around Sam. 'You okay?' he asks. He won't believe Sam if he says yes. Sam just buries his head in Dean's shoulder and tries to breathe. 

'How long?' he asks. Rasps. 'How long was I -'

'Not long,' Dean says, trying to reassure him. When Sam goes to ask again, he says, 'only a couple of days. Not long.'

'I couldn't stop myself,' Sam says. 'I - fuck, I tried, Dean, I really tried -' his voice breaks, like he's thirteen again and all made of sticks and tangled elastic bands, keeps breaking bones in falls he should _know_ how not to take but can't seem to avoid because his body, it's doing things he hasn't caught up with yet. 

'I know, Sammy,' says Dean. He tucks Sam's head under his chin and rocks him back and forth a little on the bones of his ass against the cold iron floor, like he wants to haul Sam into his lap and physically can't. Sam's back twinges, crunched down so bent and low, and he doesn't care. He grew bigger than his big brother but he will never outgrow him. 'S'okay, shh. You did good, Sam, fuck, you did so good. Look at you, you beat it.'

Sam laughs low and bitter. 'Doesn't feel like it,' he says. 

Upstairs, muted under the dull roar of the fan, Bobby's moving around the kitchen. Something clatters. Bobby swears. Dean's heart pounds in his ribcage under Sam's ear. If he had to choose a prison it would be that one. Bobby could lock the door on them and they'd be safe in there and they'd never move. It'd look like the panic room, Sam figures. Iron rimed with salt and written over with protection magic, that sounds like Dean on the inside, where Sam wants to be.

'I hate locking you up,' Dean mutters. 

'I know,' says Sam, because how he feels about it doesn't work in words.


End file.
